Sangkhlaburi: Exploring Secret Underwater Temples

Sangkhlaburi is small, sleepy town near the border with Myanmar (Burma) that was flooded because of the construction of a dam. Temples that were accessible hundreds of years ago, are now completely emerged.

These and many other hidden treasures of Sangkhlaburi, are still relatively undiscovered by tourists. Allow us to show you around this remarkable place!

In Sangkhlaburi the river Mon separates the area, dividing it into a Thai part and a Mon part. To get to the Mon side you have to cross a long bridge, the Saphan Mon, Thailand’s longest wooden bridge. How long it is exactly, remains unclear to us – some say 440 meters while other say 850 meters.
In the 1920’s, the Thai government built a dam in the Sangkhlaburi region. This meant that a big part of the land needed to be flooded; land mostly lived on by the Mon, who had to go higher up. The flooding meant that entire temples are now completely under water. Others have been completely cut off from civilization and overgrown with jungle vegetation.
The only way to reach these temples is by boat – which is precisely what we gonna do.